M16 Operation and Functioning Cycle

In our last post, we studied the similarities and differences between the AR-15 and M16 trigger mechanisms. Today's post will be another educational movie courtesy of the US Army (your tax dollars at work!). We will study the methods of operating a M16 rifle and its functioning cycle.

Today's movie was produced sometime in the early 1960s and describes the operation of the M16 rifle, specifically the earlier models. It also shows the functioning cycle of operation of a M16 rifle (i.e.) Firing, Unlocking, Extracting, Ejecting, Cocking, Feeding, Chambering and Locking and describes in detail how each stage works.

Note that this movie is pretty old, it actually refers to the rifle as the XM16E1. This is the first model of the M16 family that was adopted by the US Army. The earlier M16 rifle model was first adopted by the US Air Force, but the US Army insisted on a forward assist lever to be added to the rifle and therefore, the Air Force model was called M16 and the US Army version was called XM16E1 and later renamed to the M16A1 model in 1967. Also, in the early days, M16 magazines only held 20 cartridges and this can be seen in the movie as well.

Happy viewing.

Trigger Mechanisms of the AR-15 and the M16

A little while back, we studied how the trigger mechanisms of the AR-15 and M16 rifles work, complete with a video with animation explaining the concepts.

In today's post, we will look at a couple of videos that show the actual parts, instead of a 3-D Solidworks animation.

First up, an explanation of the AR-15 trigger mechanism:

Next, we have another video, that discusses the trigger mechanism of a M16 and compares it to that of an AR-15

Note that the M16 trigger mechanism being discussed is the M16-A1 model, which is capable of firing in semi-auto (single shot) and full-auto modes (unlike the M16-A2 and A4 models, which can fire in semi-auto and 3-round burst modes only). The AR-15 is capable of semi-auto fire only.

Happy viewing.